All posts by Thomas L. Knapp

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Want Privacy? Washington Isn’t Where You’ll Find It.

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On April 4, US president Donald Trump signed a bill repealing some of the previous administration’s rules on Internet Service Providers’ handling of user information. Privacy advocates raised Cain over the legislation, but let’s put it in perspective: The rules in question were only created last October and hadn’t even really been implemented. Internet privacy is going back in time a whopping six months, if that. The sky is not falling.

That said, if you’re worried about Internet privacy, there are steps you can take to protect yours. You probably won’t, but you can.

Why do I say you probably won’t? Because if you’re the average Internet user, you’ve already given away the store when it comes to privacy and I doubt you’re very motivated to change your ways now.

You probably use Google, Yahoo, Facebook and a bazillion other web services that collect and use (or sell) all kinds of information about you. You probably never read any of their terms of service or privacy policies before clicking on “I agree.” Consequently, those services follow you around the web 24/7 so that advertising can be targeted to your needs and desires.

A “secret” that you may have heard before: When it comes to information, you’re more often the product than the customer. That’s been the case since long before the first web site ever went up. Print magazines and newspapers often sell their goods for less than the costs of printing and distribution. They aren’t selling their content to you, they’re selling you to the real customers: The advertisers. That’s why broadcast radio and television are “free” as well.

But if — IF — you are really interested in getting some genuine Internet privacy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) has your back with tools and tutorials. You can reclaim at least some of your privacy by tweaking your browser settings, by using EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger extensions, and by installing and using a “Virtual Private Network” or the Tor Browser.

Perfect privacy probably isn’t possible, and if it was it would take a herculean effort to achieve. But you’re not noticeably less well off on that front now than you were the day before Trump signed the law relaxing restrictions on ISPs. Admit it — you weren’t going to read your ISP’s terms of service or privacy policy before signing off on them, either.

Audit your privacy situation or don’t. Take steps to improve it or don’t. That’s up to you. And the ISPs and other services will respect your decisions or try to find ways around your wishes. That’s up to them.

But you should never, under any circumstances trust to the government to safeguard your privacy. Not Congress, not the president, and certainly not law enforcement or the intelligence community. They don’t give a hang about your privacy. In fact they labor ceaselessly to compromise it for their own purposes. Whatever else you do, don’t fool yourself into believing government is your friend or protector. You’re on your own, kid.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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SCOTUS: The Nuclear Option is Not Enough

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U.S. Supreme Court building.
U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On January 31,  president Donald Trump nominated federal appellate judge Neil Gorsuch to fill a vacancy on the US Supreme Court created nearly a year before by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

More than two months later — nearly 14 months since  Scalia’s passing and after 13 months of Republican stalling and refusal to even consider former president Barack Obama’s nomination of appellate judge Merrick Garland — the US Senate is finally set to vote on Gorsuch’s nomination once it clears a final procedural hurdle (more on that below).

Unlike most politically engaged Americans, I have no strong opinion on the character or qualifications of Neil Gorsuch (or, for that matter, Merrick Garland). Because they’re appointed for life, Supreme Court justices tend to develop minds of their own rather than slavishly fulfilling the wishes of the presidents who nominate them or the parties they claim affiliation with.

I do, however, have strong and very negative opinions on the melodrama attending the whole process.

Chief Justice John Marshall was nominated to his position on January 20, 1801. The Senate stalled, declining to confirm Marshall and pushing president John Adams to substitute someone else. The matter dragged on … for seven whole days before a vote. Marshall took his seat on the court less than two weeks after Adams asked him to serve.

Two weeks in 1801, when news traveled at the speed of horse. Fourteen months in 2016-17, when news travels at the speed of light. What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with it is that the Senate is a dilatory, time-wasting, procedurally hidebound body that these days walks (at a snail’s pace) every action of significance through multiple hearings in front of various committees before acting.

The final procedural hurdle I mentioned above is called “cloture.” It’s a vote to end debate, wrap the matter up and give Gorsuch the Senate’s final,  for real, thumbs up or (or down).

Under current Senate rules cloture requires 60 votes. Republicans, with a bare majority in the Senate and no hope of winning cloture, are threatening “the nuclear option” — a rules change, which only requires a majority, to make cloture itself a mere majority vote.

I don’t think the “nuclear option” is enough. I’m with MacBeth: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly.”

Instead of changing the cloture rules, why not change the entire confirmation procedure? Put a hard deadline in the rules: On the tenth day following nomination, the nominee receives an up or down vote of the full Senate, period, no exceptions.  Pre-vote committees get that long, and no longer, to do their jobs.

The Constitution calls for the Senate’s “advice and consent” on presidential appointments, not for months or years of screwing around.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Sanctuary Cities and DoJ Funding: The Hypocrisy of Jeff Sessions

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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a surprise White House appearance on March 27, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced his intent to make America’s cities less safe and more vulnerable to crime unless he gets his way.

He didn’t say it quite like that, of course. In fact, he asserted the opposite, accusing so-called “sanctuary cities” of “mak[ing] our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on the streets” and conditioning future grants from the US Department of Justice’s Office of Justice on certification by the recipient state and local governments that they are not “sanctuary” jurisdictions.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the federal government should be handing out money and equipment (especially military equipment) to state and local police departments and court systems in the first place. Such gifts always come with strings attached, as Sessions is demonstrating with this stand. Better to keep local law enforcement locally funded and locally controlled.

That said, Sessions and his department presumably believe that the money in question (recent examples include grants for “Smart Policing,” police body cameras, and sexual assault kits) makes communities safer. That’s why the money gets handed out, at least in theory.

If Sessions does believe that his grants help keep us safe, then he’s essentially threatening to increase the likelihood that you or I will be assaulted, raped, mugged or murdered unless our local, county and state governments bend to his will.

That’s not very nice, Jeff. In fact, it’s the opposite of your job as Attorney General. As is supporting the very idea of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement “detainers.”

I happen to live in a “sanctuary county.” In 2015, Alachua County, Florida Sheriff Sadie Darnell set forth her department’s policy, which seems eminently reasonable: The department will not honor ICE “detainers” unless they’re accompanied by judicial orders or warrants.

Frankly, that should be the bottom line for every law enforcement agency in the country. When it comes to keeping someone in a cage who would otherwise be free to go, “because ICE wants him” isn’t good enough. The US Constitution is clear: “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

If federal law enforcement officers can’t even be bothered to see a judge and get an arrest warrant, they shouldn’t be asking local law enforcement to hold someone for them, nor should Jeff Sessions be threatening the rest of us over it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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